Posted on March 31st, 2007 by Dave in Poetry.

Wow, I haven’t posted anything for two months. Well, time to start again.

I wrote this poem as one of the two I am writing for an assignment. This poem depicts the plight of the Dust Bowl migrants from the 1930s, telling their tale from their view.


Gone to Dust
David Chen
American dream once so clear
Smothered by dust, blurred by despair
What once was, no longer is,
years of hard work gone to dust.
With no relief, to the highway we go,
and leave our homes behind to rot.

Hopes and dreams once so bright
now dimmed by the twilight, the road ahead.
We join thousands and thousands more,
thousands of families becoming one.
Out of the Dust Bowl, towards the west,
clutching hope with broken hearts.

Displaced by nature and machine,
we seek a final Promised Land.
The many failures of our past lives,
we leave behind us in the dust.
Hardened by pain, strengthened by will,
to California we press on.

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